“This is the seventh book in an annual book series that focus on issues connected to criminal reformation, which I have authored as part of the work of the Lampstand Foundation.

“This book is a reflection on the collection of ideas within a group of books—sources—that played such a large role in the development of my thinking; initially to deepen my criminality, but eventually becoming the soil from which my transformation and conversion to Catholicism grew.

“Most of my exploration of the ideas in these books occurred in prison or shortly after release and as such, they were works from which I drew ideas that largely supported and expanded the underlying narrative of the criminal/carceral world within which I lived, and are largely congruent with its driving ethos.

“When I was in prison I read whatever books were available in the prison library or those I could get mailed in with my very limited budget.

“Consequently, I was unable to exercise the great array of choices available outside prison and subsequently, a prisoner intellectually as well as physically.

“Now having slowly discovered the wealth of the words in the world, and informed by Catholicism—through which I filter everything—I have discovered that it matters what you read and in the great work of criminal conversion and reformation, it helps to become familiar with their intellectual sources.

“The common element of these source books is that they inspired a deep and critical reflection upon the ways of the world, with a particular focus on the social models and ideals criminals are told represent the world and to which they should aspire as part of their eventual rehabilitation. Professional criminals know that these models and ideals are misleading and that they and their way of life are closer to reality. Their perspective, which was once mine, is that criminals and the non-arrested (who are also criminals) who gain riches, fame, and power, share opposite faces of one self, but the criminal is true to self while the non-arrested is not.” (pp. 9-10)